Stormer’s Pass

by Benjamin Laskin

  “I do. I’ve known it for awhile.”

  “Where? Where would you go?”

  Aidos nodded towards the voices. “Listen…”

  “You won’t leave, will you, Hardy? You mustn’t. I couldn’t bear it.”

  “Shh, Virginia. That can wait. What can’t wait is much more terrible.”

  “What can be more terrible than you leaving me?”

  “Aidos leaving me.”

  “Nonsense. She would never leave you.”

  “I…” He sighed deeply, wearily. “I’m sending her away.”

  “No! … Why?”

  “It’s something I’ve been contemplating for a long time.”

  “Where? To your sister’s? To school? Europe?”

  “No, nothing like that. Out there—”

  “There, where?”

  “The woods.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Do you know what a rite of passage is, Virginia?”

  “You mean like the aborigines and people like that?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.”

  “A night, two nights—right?”

  “For as long as it takes,” he said. “Until she’s ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “That is for her to know.”

  “Mr. Thoreson, pardon me, but this is crazy. It’s too dangerous. You can’t just let a young girl wander about the wilderness by herself, even someone as capable as Aidos. What if anything should happen to her? How would you know?”

  “I know it sounds crazy. I’ve been dreading this day for years. But it’s something she must do…for herself.”

  Max stared at Aidos in incomprehension. “Is your dad nuts?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to do such a thing?”

  “I will.”

  “But what’s the point? What is it you’re supposed to do out there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He obviously thinks you’re supposed to find something.”

  “He doesn’t know either.”

  “Well,” Max said bitterly, “it’s stupid if you ask me. Won’t you be scared?”

  Aidos smiled. “And what if that’s what I find, Max? What if I find that I can live without being afraid? That no matter where I am or what my circumstances, I need never to fear? What would you say about such a lesson?”

  Max stood and paced, thinking. He stopped and shook his head, and then he grinned. “I would say you would be the freest being on this planet. Free as a god.”

  34

  Night Walks

  No more was said that evening about the developments in Pinecrest. Ms. Winters prepared a tasty spaghetti dinner, and afterwards they all went outside and sipped tea and talked about books and life and ideas.

  It was a conversation Max had never known before, and he felt like he had discovered a new continent. He was tempted to exclaim, ‘So this is what words are for!’ Best of all, he understood what they were talking about. He knew the names and books that his new friends spoke about. The past months of disciplined study was not in vain. And yet, he realized there was still so much more that he wanted to learn and know.

  Later, Aidos led them all on a night walk, where she dazzled Max with more of her powers of perception, insights, and her uncanny ability to draw out the miraculous from everything around her.

  It was one in the morning when Max drove an exhausted Ms. Winters home. He saw her safely inside and proceeded to walk the mile back to his house. The streets of Pinecrest were empty but for a pack of marauding dogs that roamed in search of something to eat.

  Max strolled down the center of the street. Energized and not the least sleepy, he decided to stop by Steve’s house. He believed he had something important to tell him. Max quickened his pace and fell into an easy jog. Then he stopped. He realized he didn’t know what he wanted to tell Steve, other than that he felt indescribably alive.

  He began to walk again. His strides felt loose and gigantic. He passed by the Austin’s and gazed up at Katie’s window. He pictured her in her pajamas between the crisp, flowery sheets. He had slipped into her bedroom before at such hours. He knew she wouldn’t mind. All he had to do was climb up there and then he could be in her soft arms. He could think of no sweeter place on earth than in her embrace. Then, his mind made a fantastic leap.

  He’d like to marry Katie. Would she marry him? It was an extraordinary thought, one that caught him completely off guard. He nearly blurted, ‘but I’m just a kid!’ But as the words were about to leap from his lips, he suppressed them. He felt a mingling of anger and fear, and finally—resignation. He knew that such an exclamation would be his last; that from today forward he would think of himself only as a man. He continued walking.

  When Max arrived home he found the twins asleep on the couch. They had obviously snuck out of their room to wait for him. He picked them both up, one in each arm, and carried them to their bedroom where they shared one large bed. He tucked them in and kissed each girl on the forehead. Max went to his room, changed into his gray sweats, and sat down at his desk. For an hour, he recaptured the evenings events in his journal. He fell asleep at his desk, and then three hours later he woke up and climbed a tree.

  35

  The Olympians

  As promised, Aidos took into her confidence anyone who was interested in what she had to teach them. Word spread quickly, and the number of curious youths increased from eight to twenty-five. They met every day in the woods to be amazed by the girl’s strange and wonderful talents. Only Max, Katie, Steve, and Regina made any real progress in learning the Art of Memory. The others were not disappointed. Aidos’ remarkable feats satisfied their curiosities and erased their doubts.

  Aidos also led them on daily hikes through her domain, showing them all the points of interest. After just a month they could identify dozens of different types of plant life. They were even able to describe their possible uses, which Aidos often demonstrated to them as they went along.

  Her open and unaffected enthusiasm dispelled any accusations of pretension. She made them laugh. She made them think. It came naturally to her. Most of the time they didn’t realize they were learning. The boys loved her and the girls adored her. If there was jealousy or envy, it never lasted long. Aidos had no favorites. She seemed to possess a limitless love, which she extended equally to each of her new friends. It was as if all her years of cultivated solitude bloomed forth in a vast crop of flowers that she could hand out in fistfuls.

  Every day was new and exciting, and the youths never knew what to expect. One morning she suggested a game where nobody was to say a word for the entire day. All communication had to be done in pantomime. She then led them on a four-hour walk, pointing out hidden and curious sights of all kinds, which the youths beheld with wide-eyed fascination.

  The next day she followed up by blindfolding half the group while the other half led them through the thick of the forest; they changed places on the way back. Aidos had played this game by herself dozens of times.

  On the third day, she took them on another hike, this time on their hands and knees. She continued such games for more than two weeks until none of the youths could ever look at the woods the same way again.

  The teens quickly got used to her strange way of talking. They liked the sound of her voice and the images she conjured. Even her spells of silence seemed oracular. Never intending to sound wise or clever, she nevertheless had a peculiar way of narrating the occurrences of a thousand simple delights. It was almost as if she spoke in haiku.

  “The toad leaps for cover. The grass springs back.”

  “The pinecone is hungry for the ground. The seedling is hungry for the sky…”

  “A mosquito buzzes. Bird—chirp, chirp, chirp. Crunch goes the branch under my foot. Beowulf, bark!” And the dog would bark sharply and everyone would laugh.

  As she narrated their adventures she alwa
ys brought the youths’ attention to the miracles around them. Dashing here, tiptoeing there, she seemed to be aware of everything at once.

  The gatherings had the appeal of a private club, and they soon began calling themselves the Olympians, after the gods who resided on the mountaintop in Thessaly, in Greece.

  On one dribbling, July afternoon, as the gang huddled under the shelter of a canopy of aspen trees, Aidos recounted the glorious and tragic tales of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses. Thus inspired, they adopted the names of the various gods for themselves, choosing the names that appealed most to their individual vanities. In town, they were sons and daughters, school kids patronized by the adult world. In the woods, they were a league of champions, nearly a separate and independent nation.

  Max was still the undisputed leader, and the others looked up to him more than ever. The popularity of these outings was as much his doing as Aidos’. Even kids from other schools along the mountain ridge began to attend, so that on some days the numbers swelled to over fifty people. Yet, Max always stood out as the leader. The youths followed Max to the mountain because they figured if Max Stormer went there something interesting must be going on; they kept returning because they themselves felt more interesting.

  Max led by example. He never resorted to bossing or intimidation. His respect for Aidos and her life in the woods needed no explanation, and he gave none. He insisted upon one simple ground rule that would keep their activities from becoming an extension of their former hangouts—no reminders of city life. Cell phones headed the list of no-nos, which meant no texting or selfies allowed. The only exceptions were books, sketchpads, or any instrument that lent itself to the investigation of nature or oneself. Binoculars, magnifying glasses, and even knives were okay.

  Instruments included musical instruments. The kids brought everything from kazoos and bongo drums to guitars and saxophones. For hours they played and sang and danced in a wild cacophony of unorchestrated chaos, a Dionysian musical free-for-all. At other times, they would sit back and let the more disciplined musicians like Regina take over. It was on such a day that Sinclair, now known by all as Sinbad, surprised everyone by picking up a saxophone and blowing a long, heartfelt saga. Until then no one even knew he played the sax. The applause that followed swelled him with joy. He had never known the sound of praise before.

  Each young man and woman who came from the many towns in the area to join the Olympians began to discover something uniquely exceptional about him or herself. Here they found freedom of expression. If the birds could sing from the treetops without fear of ridicule or embarrassment, why couldn’t April? She had a beautiful voice.

  Jake, who in the city was a hyper, almost spasmodic wild man, became tamed by the gentle rudeness and inhumanity of the woods. Here he learned an honest brutality, a benevolent barbarism without hypocrisy. If nature was crude, it was at least sincere.

  One day, while climbing a tree, a limb snapped underneath Jake and he fell fifteen feet to the forest floor, breaking his arm and spraining his ankle. Although in agony, Jake couldn’t have been more pleased. When the others spotted him he was wincing in laughter. “Aidos,” he tittered, “dead branches love the ground!” She smiled, wiped a glob of muck off his forehead, and replied, “And live trees love to be climbed.” Steve picked up his friend, threw him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carried him down the mountain.

  An avid animal lover, of all Aidos’ talents, Jake admired mostly her ability to track the animals that lived in the woods. He loved to sit and watch them forage and play. She showed him raccoons, skunks, porcupines, rabbits, fox, deer, even the elusive mountain lion. In town, Jake could not sit still five minutes without panicking. In the woods, he was easy-going, patient, and methodically curious. He began to join Max and Steve at the library in order to research the animals he was observing, intent upon learning everything there was to know about them. Not a meeting would go by that he didn’t have something of interest to share with Aidos about one creature or another. They always began the same way. “Aidos, did you know that…?” “No,” she would answer, always interested. “Tell me about it.” And he would.

  After Jake had sprained his ankle, Aidos presented him with the long staff that she had taken from him in the alley months earlier. Max and Steve took turns hauling the thin, wiry lad up and down the mountain, and with the stick he was able to hobble around on his own. A few weeks after his ankle had healed sufficiently, he returned it to Aidos. She was delighted, for he had carved it into a colorful totem pole with various animals sitting above one another.

  When Aidos had returned the staff to him, Jake was embarrassed and ashamed, remembering well how he had used it to maliciously tease her. He thought, how long ago that seems! Who was that idiot?

  Jake realized that he had become a different person. No one had ever treated him with more kindness and tenderness and respect than she did. He worshipped her, not with servility, but in silent gratitude. She treated him with an equality that Jake felt he did not deserve, and he became determined in his own mind to raise himself to her worthy estimation.

  Every young person attending these gatherings was touched by Aidos’ affectionate nature. She possessed no trace of malice or envy or supercilious pride. Her soul, like a magnet, seemed to draw out the best of all who came in contact with her.

  She inspired trust.

  Many youths approached her in private to unload the burden of their worst fears and frustrations. One solitary walk with Aidos was all they needed to reaffirm their lives. They received an inoculation of grace. They learned that they were created for their own good and not their own ill.

  In a small town like Pinecrest an army of kids couldn’t go running off to the woods every day without somebody noticing. Absent were the sounds of skateboards on the sidewalks and boom boxes in the park or on the street corners.

  The owners of the Dairy Queen and video arcade noticed. The parents noticed. Their sons and daughters no longer whined about how bored they were. The houses were emptied. The televisions remained turned off. Refrigerators were raided for sack lunches. The kids rose early and returned late. Mothers found rocks and pine needles in the laundry. And at the dinner table, fathers found answers to the question, “So, what did you do today?”

  The parents did not know what to make of the odd wonder-girl who went by the strange name of Aidos. They considered her an imaginary playmate. Her supposed talents and exploits were of mythic proportion, and just too incredible to be taken seriously. Her expertise with the bow and arrow reminded them of Robin Hood; her knowledge of the woods, of John Muir; her affinity with animals, of Dr. Doolittle; her arts of memory (whatever the heck that meant), of Merlin; her intrepid adventuring, of Daniel Boone; her encyclopedic intelligence, of Aristotle; her gentle, modest nature, of the Virgin Mary.

  No, the parents thought, she couldn’t possibly be so angelic. And even if half of what their children said about her were true, what difference did it make? If she was so clever and able, why wasn’t she in school making something of herself? What good did it all do her? And what a monster her father must be to keep her imprisoned in those awful woods her whole life. The kids had met Mr. Thoreson and argued that he was a kind man, but the situation was simply too strange for their parents to accept. “Just don’t let these nuts put any strange ideas in your heads,” the parents said.

  But strange ideas were not put into the youths’ heads; they were already there. They could be provoked to the surface, however, and the strangest ideas needed no more provocation than the evidence of their excellence embodied in a living example.

  As for Aidos, the last weeks of summer were extraordinary. For the first time she knew the pleasures of community. How full of surprises these new friends were. How witty and fun! Never discontented in solitude; in company, she was nothing short of jubilant. Whatever she shared with them, she received twice back in return. The puzzle of the human personality fascinated Aidos. Each of her new friends wa
s so different, as unique as a snowflake. She loved them all, though she sometimes frowned upon their behavior.

  Aidos was very protective of her woods. She would not stand by and watch them abused. One day, for example, she heard shrieks of excitement coming from the creek. Running up she caught Alex holding a large rock above his head, only a moment away from smashing a snake that was sunning itself on a large, flat boulder. Aidos yanked the rock from his hands and flung it aside. She bent down and gently lifted up the snake, which coiled about her arm. She held it up to Alex’s face. He shrank back in fear and disgust. The others shrieked in dismay.

  “This creature,” Aidos admonished, “has the same tenuous hold on life as you do, Alex.” She turned to the others. “You think this creature is low, ugly, and undeserving of life? Who among us is wise enough to decide such a thing? Death has plenty of assistants already, don’t you think?” She put the snake around her neck and walked back into the woods.

  Later that afternoon, his conscience stinging, Alex went to Aidos to apologize. Shamefaced, he kicked at the ground and said, “You saved me from becoming a killer.”

  Aidos tipped his head up to hers with her fingers, placed both hands on his shoulders and looked him squarely in the eyes.

  “You’re no killer, Alex. Conquer your fears and you’ll find peace everywhere.”

  “But what was there to be afraid of?” he said, angry at himself. “That little snake couldn’t have hurt me. I wasn’t thinking. It was stupid.”

  She smiled and nodded in agreement.

  “What you said about death scared me,” he admitted. “It scared the others too. I could tell.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare anyone.”

  “No, no,” he said. “You were right. It was good what you said. I…we, take life for granted. I mean, most of the time I forget that I am alive. And it’s great to be alive. Most of the time. Now maybe snakes don’t really know they’re alive, not like humans anyway, but I know they’re alive, and although I might not particularly like them, I think it’s cool that there is such a thing as a snake. Know what I mean?”